THE  EFFECT  OF  SLAVERY  ON  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE. 


A 


SERMON 


PREACHED  AT 


THE  MUSIC  HALL,  BOSTON, 


ON  SUNDAY,  JULY  4,  1858 


BY 


KEY.  THEODORE  PARKER, 


MINISTER  OP  THE  TWENTY-EIGHTH  CONGREGATIONAL  SOCIETY 


REVISED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


BOSTON: 

WILLIAM  L.  KENT  &  COMPANY,  3  STATE  STREET. 

1  8  5  8. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1858,  by 
WM.  L.  KENT  AND  COMPANY, 

In  the  Clerk’s  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


Geo.  C.  Hand  &  Avery,  Printers,  3  Cornhill,  Poston. 


3ZC.&91Z 

frLZ  7<sl 


SERMON. 


“  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  allmen  are  created  equal ;  that  they  areendowed  by  their 
Creator  with  certain  unalienable  Rights;  that  among  these  are  Life,  Liberty,  and  the  Pursuit  of  Happi¬ 
ness.”  What  our  fathers  said  in  their  Declaration. 

“  Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  unto  them.”  What  Jesus  said,  in 
the  seventh  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew,  the  twelfth  verse. 


There  are  three  great  events  in  American 
•  history.  The  first  is  the  Discovery  of  the  Con¬ 
tinent  ;  the  second,  the  Landing  of  the  Pil¬ 
grims  in  New  England,  who  brought  the 
Teutonic  seed  of  a  new  form  of  civilization ; 
the  third,  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
when  new  Ideas  of  Government  were  clearly 
set  forth,  destined  to  have  a  great  influence  on 
the  development  of  mankind.  This  is  not 
only  the  national  anniversary ;  it  is  the  birth¬ 
day  of  whole  families  of  republics  that  we 
know  not  of  as  yet,  for  it  must  have  a  future 
more  glorious  than  the  past  or  the  present. 

Let  you  and  me  make  the  highest  religious 
use  of  this  great  day.  Religion  includes  all 
duties,  individual  and  social,  the  Self  Pro¬ 
tection  that  I  owe  to  my  own  person,  the 
Philanthropy  due  to  my  kind,  and  Patriotism, 
the  virtue  I  owe  my  nation.  Each  man  has 
a  human  character,  general  elements  common 
to  mankind:  an  individual  character,  special 
elements  peculiar  to  himself,  and  a  national 
character  not  less.  Patriotism  is  a  great  reli¬ 
gious  duty;  it  is  philanthropy  modified  by  the 
need  of  the  hour,  and  intensified  towards  one 
special  people  —  not  that  we  love  mankind 
less,  but  our  country  more.  It  is  the  applica¬ 
tion  of  Justice  to  our  own  nation. 

The  Americans  are  making  a  new  experi¬ 
ment  in  human  history.  The  discovery  of  the 
continent  was  not  more  strange  in  1492  than 
the  American  Republic  is  now.  This,  also,  is 
a  New  World  amongst  the  governments  of  the 
earth.  Great  abstract  truths  become  great 
facts  in  the  institutions  of  the  people ;  the 
word  becomes  flesh ;  what  at  first  is  a  great 
thought  is  at  last  to  be  millions  of  men,  their 
character  moulded  by  the  institutions. 

Commonly  political  parties  in  any  country 
agree  in  the  end  they  seek,  varying  only  in 


the  means  thereto.  So  the  difference  between 
them  is  not  moral,  belonging  to  the  ethics  of 
government ;  but  economical,  belonging  to  the 
technics  of  administration :  it  relates  to  meas¬ 
ures,  not  principles.  But  to-day  it  is  not  so 
with  us.  There  are  two  parties  in  America, 
neither  yet  completely  understanding  its  prin¬ 
ciples  or  its  destination.  One  is  the  party  of 
Ereedom,  tending  to  Democracy,  which  must 
secure  welfare  and  progress  to  the  whole  peo¬ 
ple  ;  the  other  is  the  party  of  Slavery,  tending 
to  Despotism,  which  must  diminish  progress, 
lessen  welfare,  and  end  in  the  ruin  of  the 
people. 

On  this  great  day,  remembering  that  we  are 
all  Americans,  each  having  his  stake  in  the 
common  fence,  religiously  owing  great  patriot¬ 
ism  to  our  common  country,  let  us  look  at  our 
special  duty,  as  citizens  of  this  new  republic ; 
and  so  I  ask  your  attention  to  some  thoughts 
on  the  Effect  of  Slavery  on  the  American  Peo¬ 
ple.  I  shall  say  much  of  principles,  ideas  and 
facts  ;  of  individual  men  very  little. 

To  understand  the  matter  fully,  and  see  the 
effect  of  slavery,  look  a  minute  at  some  of  the 
chief  peculiarities  of  our  political  institutions. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  Europe,  there  prevailed  a  form  of  gov¬ 
ernment  which  looks  strange  to  you  and  me. 
Vicariousness  was  the  general  rule  in  religion 
and  politics ;  neither  Church  nor  State  was 
amenable  to  the  people. 

First,  the  clergy  were  responsible  for  the 
Religion  of  the  People ;  that  is,  one  man  in 
three  or  four  thousand  was  thought  answerable 
for  the  future  welfare  of  all  the  rest.  The 
clergy  made  an  ecclesiastical  theology,  and 
called  it  Divine  Revelation ;  they  established 


4 


ecclesiastical  ceremonies,  which  they  named 
the  Ordinances  of  God.  The  people  were 
only  to  believe  the  one  and  practise  the  other, 
and  their  calling  and  election  was  made  sure  ; 
for  the  priest  claimed  to  speak  with  authority 
superior  to  human  consciousness.  “  Believe  ” 
and  “  Obey  ”  were  his  two  commands ;  “  trust 
our  office,  and  not  your  own  soul  O’ 

Second,  the  King  and  the  Aristocracy  wrere 
responsible  for  the  Politics  of  the  people ;  they 
made,  expounded  and  administered  the  stat¬ 
ute  laws,  claiming  authority  above  the  col¬ 
lective  interests  or  collective  conscience  of  the 
people.  The  magistrate’s  statutes  were  a 
finality,  the  people’s  Need  and  Right  was 
none.  The  official  did  not  propose  statutes  5 
he  made  them  and  enforced.  Then  the  church 
and  state  were  both  accounted  divine,  —  that 
is,  the  final  and  ultimate  authority.  The 
priest,  king,  or  noble  all  claimed  to  hold  of 
God,  not  of  mankind ;  they  were  feudatories 
under  Him,  responsible  to  God,  not  to  man. 
The  ecclesiastical  or  political  ruler  had  all  the 
command  and  right;  only  obedience  and  duty 
belonged  to  the  ruled.  The  king  or  noble 
was  the  state,  the  priest  the  church. 

So  the  Political  Man  said  to  the  people, 
“  Keep  the  statute  law  we  make  for  you ;  pa}' 
the  taxes,  of  money  in  peace  time,  of  blood 
and  yet  more  money  in  war  time  ;  and  then 
mind  your  own  business.  Leave  us  alone, 
either  to  enjoy  the  passive  dignity  of  reigning, 
like  King  Log,  or  to  practise  the  active  work 
of  ruling,  like  King  Snake.  So  shall  it  go 
well  with  you  here.  We  are  responsible  to 
God  for  you,  and  in  heavy  pains  and  penalties 
in  the  next  life  are  we  held  in  bond.  You  are 
responsible  to  us,  and  in  heavy  pains  and 
penalties  shall  we  hold  you  in  bond  in  this 
life.  God  is  our  law,  and  Ave  are  yours.” 

This  royal  vicariousness  went  through  all 
society ;  the  title  to  office  and  land  all  run 
from  the  king  or  noble,  not  from  the  individual 
possessor,  or  the  collective  mass  of  men. 

The  Ecclesiastical  Man  said  to  the  people, 
“Believe  the  doctrines  we  teach.  You  may 
understand  them  when  you  can  ;  that  is  not 
necessary  to  salvation,  for  the  Scripture  says, 

‘  He  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned/  but 
it  says  nothing  against  him  that  understandeth 
not.  Belief  on  hearsay  is  better  than  knowl¬ 
edge  by  reason  and  conscience.  You  can  get 
things  by  rote,  if  you  cannot  by  heart.  Com¬ 
ply  with  the  ceremony,  confess  and  do  pen¬ 
ance  ;  bring  your  babies  to  baptism,  else  they 
are  damned  for  your  neglect,  and  you  for  their 


ruin ;  pay  the  tithes  and  other  church  dues ; 
and  then  mind  your  own  business.  Leave  it 
for  us  to  make  the  Catechism,  you  are  only  to 
commit  it  to  memory ;  for  us  to  administer 
the  ceremonies  and  propitiate  God  with  our 
prayers  and  self-mortification  of  the  flesh ;  — 
so  shall  it  go  well  with  you  hereafter,  and  we 
will  put  you  through  this  life  into  the  kingdom 
of  heaven.  We  are  responsible  to  God  for 
you  ;  and  the  roar  of  hell  is  in  our  ears  all  day 
long  and  all  night ;  but  you  are  responsible 
to  us  for  your  deeds,  words,  thoughts,  feelings, 
belief;  and  you  shall  hear  the  crackling  of 
fagots  unless  you  do  as  we  bid.  Do  n’t  talk 
to  us  about  your  ‘  souls ;’  human  nature  is 
good  for  nothing.  God  is  our  religion  and  we 
are  yours.” 

This  sacerdotal  vicariousness  likewise  ran 
through  all  society.  No  church-doctrines  held 
under  humanity,  either  of  reason  or  instinct, 
individual  or  collective ;  all  held  under  the 
priesthood,  which  had  eminent  domain  over 
human  consciousness.  Salvation  depended  on 
the  church,  not  on  the  faith  or  works  of  saint 
or  sinner.  The  priest  opened  and  shut  the 
gates  of  heaven;  tickets  of  entrance  were 
to  be  bought  at  his  office,  and  could  not  be  had 
elsewhere,  either  of  man  or  God. 

Such  was  once  the  theory  of  the  Divine 
State  and  Divine  Church,  the  two-fold  king¬ 
dom  of  God  on  earth.  It  was  the  best  thing 
men  had  in  those  days ;  let  us  not  grumble. 
Man  is  honest  always  and  does  the  best  he 
knows  how.  You  and  I  were  as  faithful  when 
we  stumbled  and  babbled,  as  to-day  when  we 
talk  and  go  alone.  Mankind  was  a  baby  once, 
a  stupid  boy  it  seems  to  you  and  me,  but  he 
turns  out  a  pretty  promising  child.  Let  us  not 
quarrel  with  the  hole  in  which  our  fathers 
once  burrowed,  nor  the  rude  wigwam  which 
they  built  over  it  and  named  the  divine  church 
and  state.  Each  was  once  the  best  of  its  kind 
on  earth ;  and  if  our  building  be  better,  it  is 
because  theirs  was  worse  and  came  earlier. 

So  much  for  these  Vicarious  Institutions. 

Now  in  America  we  have  somewhat  changed 
that  state  of  things.  The  political  and  eccles¬ 
iastical  functionary  is  the  servant,  the  People 
master  now.  Yet  it  is  true  that  here  and  there 
in  religious  affairs  some  ecclesiastical  man 
still  claims  divine  right  to  dictate  to  the  peo¬ 
ple,  setting  his  authority  above  their  reason, 
and  magisterially  telling  what  they  must  take 
for  piety,  theology  and  morality.  But  he  does 
it  with  such  self-distrust  and  painful  fear,  he  is 
so  afraid  of  disturbing  any  powerful  wicked- 


5 


ness,  that  it  is  plain  lie  thinks  the  popular 
stream,  fed  by  all  the  rains  of  heaven,  is 
stronger  than  the  ecclesiastical  dam  said  to  be 
built  as  miraculously  as  the  Neptunian  -walls 
of  Troy  divine.  Nay,  he  fears  lest,  by  some 
freshet  of  humanity,  caused  through  the  break¬ 
ing  up  of  winter,  or  the  melting  of  distant  and 
time-honored  snows,  thought  everlasting,  it 
may  be  swept  off,  carried  out  to  sea,  and 
whelmed  forever  in  the  ocean,  nor  never  heard 
of  more.  So  the  man  hoists  “  the  gate  of  the 
churl’s  dam  and  lets  the  stream  run  free.*’ 
This  sacerdotal  vicariousness  will  not  last  long 
in  America.  The  ecclesiastical  Ezekiel  stands 
in  the  church  valley  of  dry  bones,  and  says, 
“  Come  from  the  four  winds,  0  Spirit !  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain,  that, they  may  live  \,} 
But  the  Angel  of  Humanity  answers,  “  Son  of 
man,  not  so  !  Let  the  dead  bury  their  dead  ! 
follow  thou  me;  behold  I  make  all  things  new. 
Egyptian  and  ecclesiastical  mummies  come 
not  back  again.  Forward,  0  son  of  man ! 
Forward  !  ” 

In  the  State  the  political  man  counts  him¬ 
self  servant,  not  master.  Let  President  Vo- 
tedin  say  in  his  proclamation  to  the  people, 
Gentlemen,  I  am  your  superior,  and  you  are 
my  servants ;  you  are  to  do  as  I  say ;  ” 
if  he  should  try  to  act  thereon,  there 
would  be  a  state  of  things  presently.  The 
People  alone  are  primitive  and  final,  the  magis¬ 
trate  derivative,  provisional  and  responsible. 
The  American  Legislative,  Judiciary  or  Execu¬ 
tive,  is  only  an  attorney  of  the  manifold  and 
thirty-million-headed  People ;  a  servant  hired 
express  to  make,  expound  and  administer 
certain  statute  laws,  which  are  amenable  to 
the  people  and  reversible  thereby.  Magistrates 
are  “  Selectmen,’*  not  the  town  which  “  se¬ 
lects  ”  them.  Mr.  Banks  is  the  hired  man  of 
Massachusetts,  set  to  do  the  governing  of  the 
Commonwealth,  responsible  to  his  employers 
not  less  than  if  he  were  still  the  hired  man  of 
Mr.  Strikcandblow,  and  set  to  do  blacksmith- 
ing.  The  President  and  Vice-President,  the 
two  and  thirty  Governors,  the  Judges,  chief 
and  puny,  all  the  honorable  Members  of  Con¬ 
gress,  three  hundred  of  them,  all  the  State 
Legislators,  about  six  thousand  by  my  count¬ 
ing,  —  these  are  all  servants,  operatives  in  that 
great  national  mill  which  is  owned  by  Mr. 
American  People,  a  respectable  gentleman  who 
is  rather  a  newcomer  on  this  continent,  though 
of  pretty  ancient  family,  lie  has  some  per¬ 
sonal  property,  three  million  square  miles  of 


real  estate,  well  fenced  on  the  East  and  West 
by  a  natural  ditch,  pretty  distinctly  bounded 
on  the  North  by  the  grounds  of  his  father,  old 
Mr.  English  People,  a  very  respectable  gentle¬ 
man,  and  a  rich,  not  to  be  meddled  with 
in  haste,  a  citizen  of  very  eminent  gravity. 
On  the  South  the  border  line  is  not  less  clear, 
but  more  variable ;  there  Mr.  People  abuts 
on  his  poor  relations,  w'hom  he  respects  not 
because  he  fears  not,  and  so  he  turns  his  cows 
into  their  pastures,  and  sends  his  naughty 
boys  to  rob  their  hen-roosts  and  steal  their 
watermelons  and  commit  manifold  waste  and 
damage.  I  say  all  these  functionaries  are 
but  servants  in  the  great  mill  where  Mr. 
American  People  is  trying  to  manufacture 
welfare.  Ministers  abroad  are  his  bagmen, 
runners,  drummers,  and  other  factotums, 
whom  he  sends  off  on  his  public  business. 
Generals  and  commanders,  with  epaulettes  on 
their  shoulders,  and  plumes  in  their  bonnets, 
and  red  coats  on  their  backs,  and  tinkling 
ornaments  all  about  them,  with  their  manifold 
subordinates,  are  only  the  sea  and  land  police, 
to  prowl  about  this  great  national  mill,  and  see 
that  no  stranger  comes  to  steal  or  kill.  Let 
them  wear  their  finery  with  what  pride  they 
may,  and  stmt  their  hour,  and  talk  big  ;  he 
holds  them  all  to  strict  account ;  and  to  the 
chiefest  of  them  every  four  years  says,  “  De¬ 
part  thou  hence ;  thou  must  be  no  longer  stew¬ 
ard  ;  give  place  to  a  more  honorable  man  than 
thou  !  *’  In  the  State  all  this  vicariousness  is 
gone ;  office  is  a  trust,  not  a  right ;  the  select 
man  is  a  servant,  the  selecting  People  master. 
For  personal  conduct  and  reputation  each  man 
is  amenable  to  the  common  humanity  of  all ; 
for  personal  character,  amenable  only  to  God. 
But  each  official  operative  in  the  national 
mill,  for  conduct  and  character,  must  answer 
not  only  to  his  God,  but  to  the  People,  the 
mill  owner. 

Thoocracy,  the  priest  power,  monarchy,  the 
one-man  power,  and  oligarchy,  the  few-men 
power,  are  three  forms  of  vicarious  government 
over  the  People,  perhaps  for  them,  not  by  them. 
Democracy  is  Direct  Self-government,  over  all 
the  people,  for  all  the  people,  by  all  the  people. 
Our  institutions  are  democratic :  theocratic, 
monarchic,  oligarchic  vicariousness  is  all  gone. 
We  have  no  divine  vicar  who  is  responsible  to 
God  for  our  polities  and  religion;  only  a  hu¬ 
man  attorney,  answerable  to  the  people  for 
his  official  work.  The  axis  of  rotation  has 
changed  :  the  equator  of  the  old  civilization 


6 


passes  through  the  poles  of  the  new.  This 
makes  some  change  in  the  geography  of  both 
church  and  state. 

Then  the  American  government  is  industrial 
as  well  as  democratic.  The  nation  is  not  organ- 
ized  to  plunder,  hut  to  earn  ;  the  people  are  not 
military,  disposed  to  fight,  but  yet  have  great 
fighting  power.  Such  is  the  individual  variety 
of  action,  your  and  my  personal  freedom,  such 
the  national  unity  of  action,  compacting  all  to 
one  great  body,  that  the  people  will  prove 
terrible  fighters,  whenever  the  worse  comes  to 
the  worst  —  and  in  this  stage  of  civilization  I 
think  the  ploughman  is  not  safe  unless  he 
have  a  sword  as  well  as  a  share.  Yet  the 
Americans  are  not  military,  disposed  to  kill 
and  plunder,  but  industrial,  inclined  to  create 
and  earn  ;  hence,  in  power  for  present  welfare 
and  future  progress,  we  have  an  immense 
superiority  over  other  nations  of  the  world. 

All  human  property  is  the  result  of  Toil, 
which  is  hand-work,  and  Thought,  which  is 
head-wrork.  In  the  industrial  democracy, 
wealth  is  rated  proportionally  higher  than  in 
the  vicarious  governments  of  ancient  and 
modern  Europe  ;  for  here  it  is  not  balanced  by 
any  corresponding  weight.  There  the  father 
bequeathed  his  irresponsible  office  as  family 
estate  to  his  son  or  daughter,  who  were  held 
royal,  noble,  gentle,  because  they  inherited 
more  than  the  mass  of  men.  Here  no  man 
bequeathes  office,  honor,  title :  only  Money, 
which  represents  power  to  buy  all  marketable 
things  —  and  in  America  there  are  few  things 
not  marketable.  Hence  money  is  valued  not 
simply  as  personal  and  immediate  power  of  use 
and  beauty,  but  also  as  the  power  of  powers, 
future  ability  to  determine  the  social  rank  of 
the  next  generation.  If  the  grandson  of  Dr. 
Franklin  be  poor,  and  a  tallow  chandler,  no¬ 
body  thinks  much  better  of  him  because  he  had 
the  greatest  of  all  Americans  for  his  ancestor ; 
and  if  he  is  rich,  nobody  will  much  care  whether 
he  is  the  son  of  a  tallow  chandler  or  the  greatest 
American.  In  Boston,  when  men  set  up  a 
picture  or  statue  of  that  great,  noble  man, 
they  do  not  ask  the  tallow  chandlers,  the 
working  men,  nor  the  philosophers,  the  think¬ 
ing  men,  to  come  and  do  it ;  they  ask  only  the 
rich  men,  who  represent  the  wealth  of  labor, 
and  rhetoricians,  whose  words  bnt  ventilate 
the  thought  of  some  great  actual  thinker — prob¬ 
ably  a  dead  one  ;  they  do  not  ask  either  the 
present  or  the  future  Franklins  to  do  the  work. 

In  a  Few  England  town,  within  forty 
years,  four  men — each  poor  at  first,  rather 


mean  <md  dishonorable,  with  great  mercan¬ 
tile  talent  for  acquisition,  —  the  hungry  eye 
of  covetousness,  and  the  iron  fist  of  accu¬ 
mulation  —  have  died  and  left  some  eight 
millions  of  dollars  ;  their  children  now  occupy 
the  foremost  social  positions  in  that  town.  So 
long  as  the  live  money  is  above  ground  and 
circulating,  nobody  counts  them  dishonored  by 
the  humble  station  or  pecuniary  vices  of  the 
dead  covetousness  beneath.  If  they  have 
money,  wit  is  imputed ;  when  the  money  fails, 
the  respectability  will  slide  with  it.  In  the  in¬ 
dustrial  democracy,  money  is  proportionally 
more  powerful  than  elsewhere,  for  “  it  answer- 
eth  all  things.”  Hence  it  is  the  chief  object  of 
ambition  with  the  hopeful  youth,  and  the  chief 
object  of  veneration  with  servile  men,  young 
or  old.  This  is  better  than  of  old  time  ;  it  is 
better  that  we  worship  the  dollar,  which  repre¬ 
sents  creative  toil,  than  the  sword,  which  is 
the  symbol  of  destruction  and  violence. 

Property  is  created  by  Toil  and  Thought. 
In  the  Free  States  it  is  commonly  easy  for  the 
industrious,  forecasting  and  temperate  man  to^. 
obtain  a  generous  competence  ;  but  great  for¬ 
tunes  are  made  only  by  using  the  toil  and 
thought  of  many  men.  In  the  North,  great 
fortunes  are  commonly  made  in  trade ;  the 
merchant  is  a  trader  —  he  buys  to  sell,  and 
hires  to  let.  If  honest,  he  thereby  injures  no 
one;  but  if  also  successful,  he  grows  rich 
through  help  of  the  toil  and  thought  of  other 
men,  who  are  stimulated  and  served  bv  him  as 
much  as  he  by  them.  Yet  the  prizes  are  few 
and  not  too  great  for  the  risk.  In  the  North, 
the  trading  class  is  held  in  great  honor.  It  is 
industrial,  and  so  in  harmony  with  our  institu¬ 
tions  ;  it  is  likely  to  become  rich,  and  so  pos- 
sessed-of  the  object  of  youthful  ambition  and 
servile  veneration.  Here  it  is  what  the  priests 
are  in  Italv,  what  the  high  soldiers  are  in  Eus- 
sia  and  France,  and  the  nobility  and  gentry  in 
England.  The  ablest  practical  talent  does  not 
go  to  science,  literature,  politics,  but  to  trade. 

This  scheme  of  government  works  pretty 
well  for  us  ;  it  leads  to  "Welfare  now,  and  prom¬ 
ises  Progress  for  the  future.  I  will  not  sav 
that  our  industrial  democracy  secures  all  the 
advantages  of  each  other  form  of  government, 
and  escapes  from  all  their  ills.  It  is  a  new 
experiment,  not  complete  nor  perfect.  Its 
present  form,  even  in  the  most  enlight¬ 
ened  State,  is  quite  imperfect.  What  the 
steam  engine  and  printing  press  were  fifty 
years  ago  compared  with  what  they  are  now, 
that  is  the  industrial  democracy  of  this  day 


compared  with  its  future  glories.  But  two 
things  are  indisputable. 

First,  it  thrives  best  where  it  is  purest,  least 
mixed  with  any  alloying  element ;  and  so  in 
the  Xorth  it  produces  more  welfare  and  pro¬ 
gress  than  in  the  South. 

Second,  it  produces  its  most  beneficial  re¬ 
sults  where  it  has  been  longest  at  work.  This 
appears  by  comparing  the  old  States  of  Xew 
England  with  the  Xew  States  of  the  West ;  for 
here  the  higher  results  of  Democracy  appear  in 
the  form  of  science,  literature,  art,  philan¬ 
thropy,  better  developed  character ;  all  these 
things  require  time,  for  they  are  plants  of  slow 
growth. 

So  much  for  the  General  Institutions  of 
America,  which  distinguish  our  government 
from  others. 

Xow  see  the  Effect  of  Slavery  on  the  People 
under  these  peculiar  institutions. 

Slavery  is  an  exceptional  institution,  which 
we  have  taken  or  kept  from  old  time.  It 
,  belongs  to  that  rule  of  vicariousness,  or  rather 
to  a  time  of  barbarism  before  that.  It  is  wholly 
foreign  to  a  democracy,  hostile  to  its  funda¬ 
mental  principle.  Slavery  is  property  in 
man.  By  nature,  each  man  is  a  unit  of  human 
substance,  having  all  the  primitive,  natural 
rights  of  humanity.  By  slavery,  he  is  reduced 
to  a  fraction,  with  none  of  the  primitive,  natu¬ 
ral  rights  of  humanity.  He  is  bound  to  do  the 
duties  his  master  sets,  and  not  only  has  no 
remedy,  but  no  right. 

Ii*  America  slavery  is  mainty  limited  to 
such  as  have  African  blood  in  their  veins, 
though  this  is  sometimes  pretty  well  mixed 
with  Saxon  blood.  The  influence  of  slavery 
appears  in  two  forms ;  first,  as  it  affects  the 
Colored  Man,  and  next,  as  it  affects  the  White 
Man. 

I.  Of  its  effects  upon  the  Colored  Man. 
All  compulsory  toil  is  not  necessarily  degrad¬ 
ing.  Farmer  Hillside  has  two  lazy -bodied 
sons ;  he  makes  them  work  and  earn ;  else 
they  get  neither  breakfast,  nor  dinner,  nor  sup¬ 
per,  only  a  hard,  cold  bed.  It  is  for  their  good, 
not  their  harm,  nor  merely  through  his  selfish¬ 
ness,  that  he  does  so.  Professor  Blackboard 
has  two  lazy-minded  daughters.  He  makes 
them  study  and  learn,  for  their  sakes  more 
than  his;  it  does  the  girls  good;  by  and  by 
they  will  be  thankful  for  it.  Grim  necessity 
forces  the  human  race  to  toil  and  think ;  man¬ 
kind  is  not  degraded,  but  elevated,  by  this  com¬ 
pulsion  of  the  infinite  Father,  who  in  our  flesh 


enacts  this  benignant  law,  “  In  the  sweat  of 
thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread. ”  Toil  and 
thought  are  alike  an  honor  and  a  dignity  to 
mankind.  But  slavery  degrades  its  victims, 
worsens  and  belittles  them  in  the  qualities  of 
man.  I  do  not  deny  that  to  the  bondmen 
slavery  teaches  certain  special  things  which 
they  would  not  have  learned  so  soon  in  Africa, 
perhaps  not  at  all ;  things,  too,  which  under 
other  circumstances  had  been  a  virtue  and  an 
elevation  ;  now  they  are  forced  on  them,  not 
onlv  against  their  will,  but  for  their  master’s 
good,  and  meant  for  the  slave’s  hurt. 

1.  Slavery  degrades  the  Slave.  It  aims  to 
pervert  his  nature.  It  is  the  excellency  of  the 
Slave  that  he  repudiates  his  own  individual¬ 
ism,  is  pliant  before  his  master's  foreign  will. 
It  is  the  excellency  of  the  Man  that  he  keeps 
his  individualism  at  the  utmost  cost,  and 
holds  himself  rigid  and  impenetrable  against 
all  foreign  will.  In  order  that  every  man  may 
be  able  to  do  this,  God  gives  us  this  terrible 
Power  of  Wrath,  —  such  a  defence  even  to 
feeble  men,  and  such  a  terror  to  the  invasive 
and  usurping  will,  even  when  it  is  of  the 
strongest  sort.  Slavery  emasculates  all  virile 
individualism  away.  This  is  the  maxim  of 
humanity,  “  Rebellion  to  tyrants  is  obedience 
to  God.’’  This  is  the  maxim  of  slavery, 
“  Submission  to  tyrants  is  obedience  to  God.” 

This  degradation  is  not  an  accident  of  slavery, 
it  is  essential  to  it.  It  is  a  function  of  its 
prime  quality.  It  does  that  as  certainly  as  fire 
burns.  By  its  accidents,  slavery  may  improve 
the  bondman  in  many  things ;  nothing  can 
compensate  for  thus  unmanning  him.  If  the 
4.000,000  slaves  were  to-day  set  down  in 
Africa,  in  many  special  things  they  might  sur¬ 
pass  their  kinsfolk  there,  —  in  agriculture  and 
the  mechanic  arts,  in  their  idea  of  comfort 
and  beauty,  in  comprehensive  power  of 
thought  and  toil ;  but  in  general  manhood,  in 
self-respect,  they  would  be  exceedingly  infe¬ 
rior.  Xo  finery  in  dress,  no  mechanical  skill, 
no  art,  no  literature,  no  science,  no  power  to 
sing  Methodist  hymns  and  pray  Methodist 
prayers,  can  ever  make  up  for  the  loss  of  that 
substantial  manhood,  which  cringes  to  none, 
but  looks  each  man  in  the  eye,  and  says  to  the 
invader,  “  I  also  am  a  man,  and  if  not  a  broth¬ 
er  whom  you  will  respect,  then  at  least  an 
enemy  whom  you  shall  fear.” 

Man  subdues  other  animals,  transfigures 
their  nature  by  the  process,  and  makes  a  new 
creature.  The  dray-horse,  the  house-dog,  the 
domestic  sheep,  arc  the  works  of  man,  almost 


8 


as  much  as  the  printing  press,  or  these  roses, 
which  have  departed  so  slowly  from  their 
primitive  parent.  He  does  them  no  wrong, 
for  they  are  his  natural  servants ;  his  natural 
food  when  a  wild  man,  and  his  property  when 
civilized  —  not  for  abuse  and  cruelty,  but  for 
kind  and  honest  use ;  he  does  them  no  damage  ; 
their  welfare  is  not  thereby  necessarily  in¬ 
jured  in  bulk  or  in  kind ;  the  farmer’s  horse  is 
as  happy  as  the  horse  of  the  wilderness.  But 
yet  all  these  wild  animals  repudiate  this  altera¬ 
tion  of  nature,  counting  it  as  high  treason. 
Turn  a  domestic  bull  into  a  herd  of  wild  cattle, 
or  a  tame  crow  among  bis  savage  kinsfolk,  and 
they  tear  him  to  pieces  forthwith :  even  their 
brutal  instinct  repudiates  this  transformation. 

Now,  when  a  man  enslaves  bis  brothers,  he 
does  them  a  Damage,  by  personally  worsening 
both  the  amount  and  kind  of  their  welfare : 
he  does  them  a  Wrong,  by  perverting  then- 
nature  and  hindering  their  progress  in  the  qual¬ 
ities  of  men.  The  obedient  slave,  content  to  be 
property,  differs  from  the  natural  man,  civilized 
or  savage,  more  than  the  lap-dog  or  the  turn¬ 
spit  differs  from  the  wild  dog  of  the  Siberian  or 
Canadian  woods.  What  if  my  father  had  kept 
me  always  a  boy,  that  he  might  dandle  me  on 
his  knees  ;  or  my  mother  had  forced  me  to  be 
always  a  baby,  that  she  might  cradle  me  in  her 
bosom?  In  its  mildest  form,  from  its  very 
nature,  slavery  makes  dwarfs  of  what  would 
be  men,  and  might  be  giants.  In  the  most 
brutal  population  of  London,  there  are  women 
who  steal  the  children  of  honest  folk,  put  out 
their  eyes,  and  then  use  them  as  the  instru¬ 
ments  of  their  idle  avarice.  What  the  beggar 
in  the  rarest  of  examples,  does  to  the  child  she 
steals,  that  the  slaveholder,  as  a  general  rule, 
does  to  his  bondmen  ;  he  puts  out  the  eyes  of 
their  manhood  ;  and  though  he  burn  them  out 
with  the  gentlest  of  hot  irons,  he  makes  them 
not  less  blind.  It  has  long  been  known  that 
slavery  itself  was  a  degradation ;  that  in  mak¬ 
ing  the  slave  it  unmakes  the  man ;  “  The  first 
day  of  bondage  takes  half  the  man  away,” 
said  Ionian  Homer  3000  years  ago.  The  con¬ 
tempt  which  all  men,  even  the  anti-slavery 
philanthropists,  feel  for  the  contented  slave,  is 
mankind’s  testimony  against  this  high  treason 
towards  humanity.  The  fact  itself  begins  to  be 
comprehended  in  America.  Once  this  was  a 
common  argument:  “  Slavery  is  bad  in  itself, 
good  in  its  uses  ;  it  elevates  the  human  savage, 
and  makes  him  a  man,  even  a  Christian.” 
Now  this  is  abandoned  by  economists  and  poli¬ 


ticians,  and  is  left  only  for  that  class  of  minis¬ 
ters 

“  Whose  neck-cloth  white 
Is  black  at  night.” 

See  the  changes  in  the  slaveholder’s  idea  of 
a  slave.  In  1776  he  was  a  man  unjustly  held 
in  bondage  against  the  law  of  nature,  but  held 
transiently  and  provisionally.  Next,  a  man  held 
permanently,  but  wrongfully,  —  an  inferior 
kind  of  man  held  as  an  apprentice  to  a  supe¬ 
rior  ;  certain  rights  allowed  him,  his  gain  of 
welfare  greater  than  his  loss  of  freedom.  Now, 
he  is  declared  to  be  an  a  animal  incapable  of 
civilization  ;”  he  has  u  no  rights  which  white 
men  are  bound  to  respect.”  A  popular  south¬ 
ern  writer  says  :  “  Hay  is  good  for  horses,  bad 
for  hogs  ;  so  liberty  is  good  for  white  men,  bad 
for  negroes  ;  ”  he  does  not  know  whether  they 
“  have  any  souls  or  not.”  The  Supx-eme  Court 
of  Virginia  has  just  decided  that  a  slave  has 
no  legal  power  of  assent  or  dissent.  The  gen¬ 
eral  public  opinion  of  the  South  now  is,  that 
the  white  man  has  the  same  natural  right  to 
enslave  an  African  as  to  tame  a  horse  ! 

2.  Slavery  degrades  also  the  Free  Colored  man 
in  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors,  and,  still  worse,  in 
his  own  eyes.  White  men  in  America  change 
their  names  to  get  rid  of  being  associated  with 
disgraceful  relatives.  If  I  had  a  brother 
hanged  for  an  infamous  crime,  my  own  self 
respect  would  be  greatly  lessened  —  not  before 
God,  but  certainly  before  men.  The  position 
of  the  free  colored  man  in  America  is  of  all 
others  the  most  unhappy.  The  poorest 
Spaniard  our  fillibusters  war  against,  can 
point  to  his  European  home  and  boast  of  the 
magnificent  exploits  of  his  nation,  that  discov¬ 
ered  the  new  world,  and  say 

“We  were  the  first 
That  ever  burst 
Into  this  silent  sea.” 

The  humblest  German  who  has  nothing  but 
his  tobacco  his  lager-bier  and  his  Kauder- 
welsch,  the  patois  of  some  little  district  he  was 
cradled  in,  has  behind  him  the  noblest  of 
earth’s  noble  nations  !  all  the  generous  glories 
which  have  accumulated  from  fighting  Anni- 
nius  down  to  thoughtful  Von  Humboldt,  weave 
a  halo  round  the  head  of  Fritz  and  Gretchcn, 
cradled  in  the  poorest  German  home.  The 
rudest  Irishman  comes  from  a  country  which  is 
rich  in  great  names;  every  O’Brien  claims  to  be  a 
descendant  from  Brennus  who  smote  Rome  to 
its  very  foundations;  once,  Irishmen  led  west¬ 
ern  Europe  in  civilization  and  bought  fair- 


9 


haired  Saxon  girls  of  Britain  for  their  own 
slaves.  When  New  England  was  poor,  old 
Ireland  sent  books  for  yonder  college  and 
bread  for  this  town.  No  nation  has  been  so 
despised  as  the  Hebrews ;  but  in  the  worst 
ages,  in  the  darkest  persecution,  hated,  out¬ 
cast,  smitten,  despised,  their  venerable  beards 
spit  upon  by  every  Christian,  the  Jew  looked 
back  to  darker  days  and  saw  the  Pillar  of  Eire 
with  Moses  walking  underneath  and  leading  the 
world’s  civilization ;  he  read  his  Hebrew 
Bible,  full  of  sublimest  poetry,  and  bethought 
him  that  Judea  was  one  of  the  queens  of  civ¬ 
ilization,  when  all  Europe  was  a  wilderness, 
save  a  little  fringe  of  more  than  Cytheroean 
beauty,  wrought  round  the  borders  of  the  mid¬ 
land  sea.  He  turned  to  the  Mahommedans 

i 

with  their  scimetar  in  their  hand  and  said, 
“  Three  quarters  of  your  religion  is  only  Old 
Testament;  all  that  is  good  for  anything  comes 
from  us  ;  the  commonplaces  of  a  Hebrew  poet 
are  the  inspiration  of  your  Prophet.”  Did 
the  Christians  mock  7  The  Hebrew  said, 
“  Your  Saviour  was  nothing  but  a  Jew. 
‘  God  in  heaven  ’  is  he  ?  A  few  hundred 
years  ago  he  was  a  Jewish  carpenter  at  Naza¬ 
reth,  doing  job  work,  making  plows  and  ox 
yokes  for  the  farmers.”  To-day  at  Constanti¬ 
nople  the  Jew,  an  exile  from  Spain,  is  poor  — 
no  where  else  in  the  whole  globe  of  lands ; 
even  his  thrift  forsakes  him  there  ;  despised  by 
the  Christian  and  the  Turk,  he  opens  Isaiah 
or  the  Psalms,  and  remembers  that  he  comes 
from  a  line  of  men  who  two  or  three  thousand 
years  before,  bore  in  their  ark  the  treasure  of 
humanity,  and  he  feels  an  inward  self-respect 
which  neither  Christian  nor  Turk  can  ever 
insult.  But  the  poor  Negro  has  no  history  to 
look  back  upon  ;  no  science,  no  arts,  no  litera¬ 
ture,  not  even  a  great  war,  no  single  famous 
name !  He  looks  round  him,  and  his  race  is 
enslaved.  I  do  not  wonder  at  his  despair, 
especially  amid  a  tribe  of  men  who  are  stirred 
with  such  intensity  of  national  pride  as  has 
marked  the  Saxon,  the  Teuton,  since  he  first 
crossed  swords  with  Roman,  Slavonian  and 
Gaul. 

The  effect  of  slavery  on  the  colored  men, 
bond  or  free,  is  evil,  perhaps  only  evil.  1 
know  the  wrong  which  they  suffer  awakens 
very  little  sympathy  with  the  mass  of  men,  who 
in  their  rudeness  reverence  Strength  and  not 
Justice.  But  the  colored  men  are  one  seventh 
part  of  our  population,  and  America  does  not 
rise  as  the  Negro  falls ;  you  and  I  go  down 
with  him ;  for  if  one  seventh  of  the  people  be 


degraded  it  is  the  Nation  that  is  debased, 
Would  you  feel  safe  if  every  seventh  house  in 
Boston  was  full  of  the  yellow  fever  and  every 
seventh  man  was  dying  of  it  ?  There  is  a 
moral  degradation  which  is  contagious  not  less 
than  the  plague. 

There  is  a  solidarity  in  mankind.  You  lift 
yourselves  up  by  your  attempts  to  elevate 
your  neighbor.  The  New  Englander  sends 
a  missionary  to  India  :  he  does  more 
good  in  New  Haven,  in  Boston,  in  Andover, 
than  ever  in  Beloochistan  or  Siam.  You  en¬ 
slave  yourselves  when  you  enslave  your  brother 
man. 

I  just  now  said  no  nation  is  safe  without  the 
power  to  fight.  In  case  of  war  with  England, 
of  the  four  million  slaves  at  least  three  mil¬ 
lions  would  take  sides  with  the  enemy ;  most 
of  the  free  blacks  would  spontaneously  do  the 
same.  Would  you  dare  to  blame  them  and 
then  look  at  yonder  monument  1  Did  not  our 
fathers  draw  the  great  and  terrible  sword 
against  our  own  mother  nation  that  had  injured 
us,  and  yet  but  little  ?  Revenge  is  natural 
to  savage  bosoms  :  God  enthroned  it  there 
that  when  the  tyrant  trembled  at  nothing  else, 
he  might  quake  at  the  foeman’s  lifted  arm  and 
the  fear  of  assassination. 

Napoleon  has  put  down  open, resistance  and 
is  not  afraid  of  that;  there  is  nothing  left  for 
the  people  but  what  Italians  and  Frenchmen 
have  been  trained  to  love  — the  assassin’s  dag¬ 
ger —  and  he  trembles  at  that.  If  America 
keeps  the  slave  from  developing  the  noblest 
quality  of  his  nature,  then  he  falls  back  on  the 
lowest.  The  power  of  wrath  never  fades  out 
from  human  bones ;  the  animal  instinct  is 
older  than  the  spiritual  cultivation. 

Wise  rulers  do  not  like  to  have  in  any  com¬ 
munity  a  class  of  men  who  are  not  interested 
in  its  welfare  and  progress,  for  such  arc  always 
ready  for  rebellion  and  care  not  who  breaks 
through  the  hedge  they  have  not  a  stake  in. 
Even  carpenters  in  their  shops  have  the  shav¬ 
ings  carefully  swept  up  at  night,  lest  a  spark 
should  burn  their  riches  down.  But  no  nation 
has  so  dangerous  a  class  of  proletaries  as 
America.  Paris  has  her  Faubourg  St.  An¬ 
toine,  and  the  forts  have  their  cannon  so 
planted  that  they  can  play  upon  it  and  make  it 
spring  into  the  air  with  their  perpendicular  or 
horizontal  shot.  London  has  its  St.  Giles,  a 
double  police  guarding  it  through  the  day  and 
twofold  lanterns  illuminating  it  by  night.  But 
our  Faubourg  St.  Antoine  extends  over  fifteen 
States  in  America;  there  arc  ifour  millions  of 


10 


paupers  in  our  St.  Giles.  No  carpenter's  shop 
is  so  littered  with  inflammable  material  as 
America.  Why,  a  loco-foco  match  thrown  by 
a  Democratic  hand  might  fire  these  shavings  of 
humanity  which  we  have  planed  off  from  the 
African  tree, — and  then  where  are  we  1  Be 
sure  of  it,  unless  we  amend,  one  day  there  will 
be  a  St.  Domingo  in  Ameriea,  and  worse 
wrongs  will  be  requited  worse. 

So  much  for  the  Effect  of  Slavery  on  the 
Colored  man. 

II.  As  the  feeling  for  four  or  five  million  of 
colored  men  is  so  weak  that  the  politician  des¬ 
pises  it,  counting  it  not  one  of  the  forces  that 
sway  the  popular  opinion ;  as  the  fear  of  out¬ 
break  or  invasion  is  so  small  that  no  northern 
man  is  troubled  at  it,  look  at  the  Effect  of  Sla¬ 
very  on  the  White  Man.  To  understand  it 
thoroughly  look  briefly  at  some  of  its  details. 

The  chief  work  of  mankind  may  be  thus 
lotted  out.  First,  there  is  the  Industrial  Activ¬ 
ity,  which  aims  at  property,  command  over  the 
forces  of  nature.  This  is  represented  by 
Business ;  its  result  is  Wealth  in  all  its  forms. 

The  second,  is  the  Literary  and  Scientific 
Activity, which  aims  at  Knowledge — to  acquire 
and  distribute  thought.  This  is  represented  by 
the  Press  and  the  School;  its  result  is  Popular 
Intelligence,  Education  in  all  its  forms. 

The  third  is  the  Religious  Activity  which 
aims  at  Rest  in  God,  Completeness  and  Per¬ 
fection  of  Character.  This  is  represented  by 
the  Church  ;  and  the  results  are  Noble  Charac¬ 
ter,  Noble  Life  —  individual  and  social,  in  the 
family,  in  the  community,  in  the  state  and  in 
the  world. 

The  fourth  is  the  Political  Activity  which 
aims  at  Sociality,  companionship  of  man  with 
man,  the  enjoyment  of  all  individual  and  social 
rights.  This  is  represented  by  the  State;  its 
highest  result  is  National  Unity  of  Action,  all 
working  as  one,  and  Individual  Variety  of  Ac¬ 
tion,  each  having  his  personal  freedom. 

I  have  so  often  and  so  long  spoken  of  these 
things,  that  to-day  I  need  not  say  much  thereof. 

First,  Slavery  degrades  the  Industrial  Ac¬ 
tivity  and  hinders  the  creation  of  wealth.  No 
doubt  it  enriches  the  slaveholders,  but  it  im¬ 
poverishes  the  community.  So  piracy  is  profit¬ 
able  to  pirates,  though  ruinous  to  the  merchant 
who  falls  into  their  hands,  and  perilous  to  trade 
in  general.  Slavery  degrades  work,  makes 
men  despise  it,  as  the  business  only  of  bond¬ 


men.  Looked  at  economically  it  is  a  poor 
tool  for  the  work  of  productive  industry.  See 
how  the  facts  look  in  figures. 

In  1850  the  fifteen  slave  states  had  850,000 
square  miles  of  land  ;  the  sixteen  free  states 
but  612,000  square  miles.  But  the  actual  val¬ 
uation  of  the  slave  land  was  only  $13,000,000, 
while  the  free  land  went  up  to  $2,440,000,000. 
240,000  square  miles  less  was  worth  $1,100,- 
000,000  more. 

In  1856,  the  total  value  of  the  slave  states 
was  $2,500,OQO,000  ;  the  total  value  of  the  free 
states  was  $5,700,000,000.  So  the  North  could 
buy  up  all  the  land  and  goods  which  the  South 
possesses,  and  then  buy  the  whole  population 
at  $300  ahead  —  black  and  white,  bond  and 
free. 

The  Effect  of  Slavery  on  the  industrial  ac¬ 
tivity  of  the  country,  its  business  and  wealth,  is 
terrible.  It  degrades  labor,  it  impoverishes  the 
People.  It  concentrates  their  riches  into  the 
hands  of  a  few,  who,  like  Senator  Hammond 
of  South  Carolina,  call  American  working-men 
slaves,  and  like  him  add  their  sons  and 
daughters  to  the  assessable  property  of  their 
estates. 

Slavery  is  the  great  enemy  of  the  laboring 
man  who  is  not  a  slave.  The  New  England 
thinker  makes  a  steam  shovel  which  takes  up 
two  and  a  half  tons  weight  at  a  lift  and  strikes 
four  times  in  three  minutes,  and  with  four  men 
to  attend  it  does  the  work  of  ninety-six  more. 
This  elevates  labor,  it  improves  the  condition 
of  the  working-man  ;  it  promotes  also  his  edu¬ 
cation,  by  mixing  thought  with  his  toil :  while 
the  common  digger  gets  but  a  dollar  a  day, 
the  thoughtful  man  who  can  manage  a  steam 
engine  gets  from  three  to  four  dollars.  Great 
inventors  are  the  Evangelists  and  Apostles  to 
the  Gentiles  who  announce  a  new  Kingdom  of 
God  which  is  a  Kingdom  of  righteousness,  the 
reign  of  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  amongst 
men.  But  he  who  kidnaps  a  man  and  forces 
him  to  work,  degrades  labor  itself  and  com¬ 
mits  high  treason  against  the  industrial  democ¬ 
racy.  I  know  the  Catholic-Irishman’s  right 
eye  is  put  out  by  the  priest,  and  his  left  eye  is 
covered  up  by  the  thumb  of  the  American 
demagogue :  but,  with  both  his  eyes  treated 
thus,  I  should  think  he  would  yet  have  human 
instinct  enough  to  know  that  whoever  enslaved 
a  negro,  degraded  likewise  every  working  Irish¬ 
man.  But  yet  not  only  Irishmen  do  not  know 
it,  a  quarter  part  of  the  American  working 
men,  native  born,  are  not  aware  of  this  most 
obvious  fact. 


11 


Second.  Then  Slavery  degrades  Literary 
and  Scientific  Activity. 

It  hinders  the  Education  of  the  people. 
Look  at  this.  In  1850,  the  South  had  but 
18,000  public  schools,  the  North  62,000;  the 
South  had  19,000  teachers,  the  North  73.000; 
the  South  had  700,000  pupils  in  schools,  acad¬ 
emies  and  colleges,  the  North  2,900,000  — 
2,200.000  more  than  all  the  South.  In  1854, 
Virginia  paid  $70,000  for  educating  her  poor  ; 
$73,000  for  a  Public  Guard,  to  keep  the  slaves 
from  rising  up  and  saying,  Sic  semper  tyrannis. 
One  day  $73,000,000  will  not  do  it.  Sic  sem¬ 
per  tyrannis  will  be  the  slave's  motto,  as  it  is 
his  master's  now. 

Out  of  a  white  population  of  less  than 
6,000,000,  the  South  has  500,000  native  white 
inhabitants  who  cannot  read  the  word  Buchan¬ 
an;  while  out  of  a  white  population  of  13,500,- 
000,  the  North  has  not  quite  a  quarter  of  a 
million  natives  who  cannot  read  the  New 
Testament  all  through,  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  besides. 

Whence  come  the  Practical  Inventions  pa¬ 
tented  at  Washington  ?  Eleven-twelfths  of 
them  come  from  a  Northern  brain,  and  the 
one-twelfth  which  has  emanated  from  the 
Southern  mind  is  hardly  worth  the  parchment 
which  records  it. 

Whence  comes  the  Literature  of  the  nation — 
its  histories,  essays,  romances,  poems,  plays, 
great  sermons  'i  All  from  the  North.  For 
fifty  years  the  South  has  not  produced  a  great 
writer,  who  has  even  a  national  reputation  ;  no 
historian,  no  philosopher,  no  poet,  no  moralist, 
even  no  preacher. 

Whence  comes  the  nation's  Science  ?  From 
the  same  quarter.  Yet  I  do  know  two  emi¬ 
nent  men  of  science  of  whom  Virginia  mav 
well  be  proud  that  she  gave  them  birth,  as 
Massachusetts  that  she  gave  them  each  a  home : 
but  their  parents  were  Scotch,  married  in  Scot¬ 
land  ;  the  children  were  only  born  in  Virginia. 
It  was  the  Scotch  egg  of  freedom  which  was 
brooded  over  only  in  the  Virginia  nest  of 
slaveholders  —  and  it  was  not  a  slaveholder 
’which  brooded  that. 

Slavery  strikes  the  Southern  mind  with 
palsy  ;  the  people  cannot  be  educated  there. 
Talent  enough,  no  doubt,  is  born  there  ;  it 
cannot  be  bred.  If  the  star  of  genius  stands 
still  over  a  southern  home,  yet  the  “  desire  of 
all  nations,"  whose  birth  it  heralds,  is  stifled 
by  the  asses  that  bray  around  the  young  child’s 
cradle  and  seek  its  life. 

But  the  influence  of  Slavery  extends  beyond 


the  South,  and  poisons  also  the  literature  of 
the  Northern  men  who  support  it.  Look  at 
the  newspapers  of  the  slave  editors  of  the 
North,  —  some  of  you  read  them  every  day ; 
listen  to  the  orations  of  slave  orators  —  you 
can  hear  enough  of  them  to-morrow  ;  hearken 
to  the  sermons  of  the  slave  preachers  —  you 
may  hear  such  to-day ;  and  learn  the  ghastly 
effect  of  slavery  on  the  literary  activity  of  the 
people.  Nay,  look  at  the  school  books  com¬ 
posed  by  such  men,  and  see  how  the  slave 
power,  afar  off,  can  debauch  even  a  northern 
mind.  More  than  thirty  years  ago,  Von 
Humboldt,  the  grandest  scholar  of  all  Chris¬ 
tendom,  wrote  a  political  essay  on  the  Island 
of  Cuba.  It  circulates  in  the  court  of  every 
tyrant  of  Europe ;  it  is  welcome  in  Spain, 
translated  into  that  sonorous  tongue.  He  tells 
the  tale  of  the  black  man’s  wrong,  and  the  woe 
which  may  one  day  spring  out  of  the  ground 
which  has  been  fattened  by  his  sweat  and  red¬ 
dened  by  his  blood.  But  an  American  Dem¬ 
ocrat  translates  the  book  into  English, 
leaves  out  the  magnificent  philanthropy  of  Mr. 
Humboldt,  and  puts  in  his  own  twaddling 
partisanship,  sustaining  slavery,  and  declaring 
that  free  society  is  a  mistake.  I  do  not  won¬ 
der  the  indignation  of  the  old  man,  almost  four 
score  and  ten  years  venerable,  is  stirred  within 
him  when  he  learns  the  disgraceful  fact. 

Third.  Then  Slavery  degrades  the  Religious 
Activity  of  the  People.  At  the  South  it  is 
only  the  least  enlightened  sects  which  pre¬ 
vail  ;  such  as  have  the  lowest  ideas  of  Man 
and  God,  and  their  Relation  to  each  other. 
Southern  men  are  proud  of  this,  and  make  it 
their  boast  that  “there  arc  no  Unitarians  of 
the  South," —  that  is,  none  who  preach  an  in¬ 
telligible  rational  idea  of  the  oneness  of  God. 
They  are  proud  that  they  “have  no  Univer- 
salists,"  —  none  who  think  that  God  is  too 
good  to  damn  even  a  slaveholder  forever  and 
ever.  Nay,  they  declare  that  Heresy  rends 
not  asunder  the  seamless  vail  of  the  pro-slavery 
Church,  behind  which  the  slaveholder  and  the 
slave-hunter  stand.  They  make  it  their  boast 
that  there  arc  no  Tylerites  nor  Taylorites,  no 
Bushnellites  nor  Becchcrites,  among  them, 
but  that  all  equally  accept  the  faith  once  for  all 
delivered  to  the  saints,  for  the  enslavement  of 
the  negro  and  the  salvation  of  the  slaveholder, 
the  slave-hunter,  the  slave-driver,  the  slave- 
trader,  the  slave-breeder,  not  out  of  his  sins, 
but  in  his  sins.  For  eighty  years  the  Southern 
church  has  contributed  nothing  to  the  theology 


12 


of  America  —  not  a  new  thought  worth  the 
nation’s  hearing,  no  great  truth  on  any  theo¬ 
logical,  religious  or  moral  theme.  Nay,  there 
is  not  a  single  hymn  sung  by  a  Southern  voice 
that  finds  its  way  into  a  Northern  church. 

Then,  too,  consider  the  cruelty.  Remember 
that  the  South  solemnly  burns  alive,  with  green 
wood,  criminals  from  the  humblest  class  of 
society,  as  sport  to  the  “  gentlemen  ”  of  the 
land.  Remember  that  when  an  assassin  dealt 
your  noble  Senator  a  coward’s  blow,  more 
bitter  than  death,  remember  that  all  the 
Southern  religion  said  it  was  a  good  thing  ! 
Thus  see  the  effect  of  slavery  on  your  own 
brothers,  in  their  own  churches,  called  after 
Christ,  with  the  same  gospel  before  them  out 
of  which  the  grand  truths  of  humanity  so 
preach  themselves  to  you  and  me ! 

How  Slavery  degrades  the  churches  of  the 
North  !  Some  men  it  silences,  and  they  dare 
not  speak  of  the  great  outrage  against  the 
Democratic  Institutions  of  America,  against 
the  natural  Rights  of  Man,  the  Law  of  God. 
Other  men  it  makes  madmen  or  idiots  in  their 
religious  faculty,  and  they  boldly  proclaim 
that  this  great  crime  against  mankind  is  a 
“  Revelation  from  Almighty  God.” 

My  ears  are  not  preternaturally  delicate,  yet 
from  childhood  up  I  could  not  hear  profane 
words  profanely  spoke,  without  a  shudder; 
but  no  swearing  of  the  lowest  men  I  ever  en¬ 
countered  in  an  Ohio  railroad  car,  or  met  in 
an  Illinois  bar-room,  has  ever  filled  me  with 
such  horror  as  the  profanity  of  ministers  in 
their  pulpits,  out  of  this  Bible  which  they  call 
God’s  word,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  whom  they 
affect  to  worship  as  God,  attempting  to  justify 
the  foulest  wrong  which  man  ever  does  to 
man.  The  State  makes  slavery  a  Measure, 
but  the  Chureh  baptizes  it  as  a  Principle. 

Look  at  the  Bible  Society,  counting  its 
money  by  millions,  which  has  not  a  New  Tes¬ 
tament  for  a  slave.  Look  at  the  Foreign  Mis¬ 
sionary  Society ;  where  are  its  Evangelists  to 
preach  the  “  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord  ”  unto 
American  heathen,  who  fill  up  whole  Gallilees 
of  southern  Gentiles  ?  Look  at  the  American 
Tract  Society  ;  it  has  not  a  word  against  the 
great  wickedness  of  a  nation  which  enslaves 
one  seventh  part  of  the  People  and  imperils 
the  rights  of  all  the  rest.  Then  vou  see  how 
Slavery  debases  the  holiest  thing  it  lays  its 
hands  upon. 

Finally,  it  degrades  the  Political  Activity  of 


the  American  people  in  their  industrial  De¬ 
mocracy. 

At  the  South,  it  rears  up  a  Privileged  Class 
—  350,000  slaveholders  —  who  monopolize  all 
the  education  —  and  do  not  get  much  —  who 
monopolize  the  money,  respectability,  and  the 
political  power.  They  are  the  masters  of  the 
bondmen  whom  they  own,  and  of  the  “  poor 
whites  ”  whom  they  control.  So  in  the  midst 
of  our  industrial  democracy  there  grows  up  a 
class  who  despise  the  industry  which  feeds  and 
clothes  them.  Not  a  Southern  State  has  a 
“  Republican  form  of  Government.”  These 
men  are  seeking  to  revive  that  old  Vicarious¬ 
ness  of  the  dark  ages,  and  that  in  its  worst 
form.  See  how  they  degrade  the  mass  of  the 
people,  hindering  their  education,  their  reli¬ 
gion,  their  self-respect;  hindering  even  their 
industry.  The  greatest  intellect  of  the  South 
runs  to  politics,  and  yet,  in  the  last  thirty 
years,  the  South  has  not  produced  one  single 
great  statesman.  Over  her  head  there  hangs 
a  peril  more  disastrous  and  more  imminent 
than  impends  over  Italy,  over  Spain,  over 
France,  even  over  Turkey,  and  yet,  in  that 
democracy  of  the  South,  not  a  single  politician 
has  risen  up  and  dared  to  cope  with  this  giant 
ill,  and  warn  his  nation  against  it  ! 

There  is  no  great  political  talent  developed 
at  the  South,  no  statesmanship.  Power  of 
intrigue,  power  to  take  the  lumps  of  dough 
which  we  send  from  the  North,  and  fashion 
them  to  vessels  of  dishonor,  and  fill  them 
with  the  shame  they  are  only  fit  to  hold,  — 
this  is  the  extent  of  the  South’s  political 
talent. 

This  slave  power  has  its  vassals  all  over 
the  North.  They  abound  in  the  great  cities, — 
Cincinnati,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Boston. 
Read  their  journals,  listen  to  their  orations,  hear 
what  they  propose  for  laws,  and  see  the  bane¬ 
ful  influence  of  slavery  on  the  political  develop¬ 
ment  of  the  North. 

But  this  privileged  class,  this  oligarchy  of 
slave-holders,  slave-hunters,  and  slave-breeders, 
has  long  controlled  the  politics  of  the  nation. 
Once  it  ruled  the  Whig  party ;  then  the  Know- 
Nothing  party  ;  the  Democratic  party  it  has 
controlled  for  a  long  time.  See  its  measures  : 
The  Fugitive  Slave  Bill,  the  Dred  Scott  De¬ 
cision  ;  the  spread  of  slavery  into  Kansas  and 
other  territory  ;  the  acquisition  of  new  territory 
to  spread  it  into ;  the  re-opening  of  the  Afri¬ 
can  slave  trade,  to  fill  the  South  with  men 
whose  masters  shall  force  them  to  work,  and 
degrade  still  further  the  labor  of  every  Irish 


13 


man,  German,  or  American  bom  to  the  soil ! 
Take  the  last  three  administrations, — include, 
if  you  will,  the  present ;  study  their  great 
acts ;  look  at  their  representative  men ;  con¬ 
sider  the  principles  they  lay  down,  and  the 
measures  they  thereon  build  up.  Compare 
these  with  the  three  first  administrations,  —  of 
Washington,  Adams,  Jefferson.  Try  them  by 
the  two  texts  of  this  morning’s  sermon,  —  the 
Golden  Rule,  which  is  now  a  maxim  of  hu¬ 
manity  ;  the  noble  word  of  our  fathers,  also  a 
self-evident  truth, — and  then  you  see  the  effect 
of  Slavery  on  American  politics. 

The  slave  power  violates  the  conscience  of 
the  American  people,  and  then  seeks  to  muz¬ 
zle  the  mouth.  In  the  South  there  must  be 
no  discussion  of  Slavery.  Ministers  are 
mobbed,  tarred  and  feathered,  and  driven  off. 
Even  a  bookseller  is  not  allowed  to  retail  his 
liberal  wares  in  Alabama,  which  Mr.  Clay,  its 
representative  Senator  in  Congress,  says  is  a 
“  model  slave  State.”  So  indeed  it  is  !  This 
is  the  test  of  institutions  :  Can  they  bear  to  be 
looked  at  in  the  daylight,  and  talked  about 
by  every  tongue  ?  Napoleon  and  the  Pope,  say 
tyranny  cannot  be  looked  at;  the  South  says  the 
same.  Has  the  North  any  institution  that  it  is 
afraid  to  have  looked  at  and  talked  about  1 
Senator  Hammond  says,  “We  will  send  our 
missionaries  to  the  North,  to  talk  about  the 
wrongs  of  the  people  !  The  wrongs  of  the 
Northern  People !  where  a  shoemaker  turns 
into  a  Senator,  and  nobly  fills  the  place,  —  far 
better  than  the  accomplished  scholar,  who  but 
trod  on  it  before;  where  we  turn  blacksmiths 
into  Governors,  and  have  Colleges  for  the  Peo¬ 
ple  by  every  valley,  and  beside  every  little 
stream  that  runs  among  the  hills  !  Mr.  Ham¬ 
mond’s  father,  a  native  of  this  State,  went  to 
the  South  in  a  humble  capacity,  to  seek  his 
fortune,  and  found  it  by  marrying  a  plantation  ; 
and  from  that  wedlock  has  this  Senator  Ham¬ 
mond  sprung,  who  says  that  the  working  people 
of  the  North  are  “the  mud-sills  of  society,” 
“  essentially  slaves,”  only  not  so  well  paid  and 
cared-for  as  his  own  !  While  he  was  utterincr 
this,  the  valuation  of  all  the  lands  and  goods 
in  South  Carolina  was  not  quite  $148,000,000, 
but  the  valuation  of  assessable  property  in 
Boston  was  $258,000,000.  The  “  mud-sills,” 
the  “  slaves  ”  of  the  North,  in  a  single  city, 
had  $110,000,000  more  of  property  than  the 
whole  great  State  of  South  Carolina,  and  her 
Senator  thrown  in! 


Such  are  the  Effects  that  slavery  has  on  the 
Industrial,  Intellectual,  Religious  and  Political 
Development  of  the  people.  It  is  a  four-fold 
curse  upon  the  master,  not  less  than  upon  the 
slave. 

Look  at  New  England !  She  has  60.000 
square  miles  of  land  —  and  what  is  it? 
Some  of  you  have  tilled  it ;  I  also  for  many  a 
year.  The  soil  is  thin  and  poor ;  the  climate 
ungenial ;  the  summers  short,  the  winters  long 
and  terribly  severe.  Timber,  granite,  ice, 
are  our  natural  staples,  wherein  yet  we  have 
no  monopoly.  Virginia  has  63,000  square 
miles  ;  she  has  1300  more  than  New  England, 
with  an  admirable  soil,  and  “  the  finest  climate 
in  the  world.”  Her  surface  bears  every  thing, 
from  tropic  cotton  in  the  southern  valleys  to 
arctic  moss  on  the  mountain  top.  The  earth 
teems  with  most  valuable  minerals.  Her 
coast  has  the  best  of  harbors ;  her  great  rivers  are 
a  static  power  for  internal  navigation ;  small 
ones  a  dymanic  force  for  manufactures.  She 
had  been  settled  twelve  years  while  New  Eng¬ 
land  had  no  man  but  the  red  Indian.  Now, 
New  England  has  3,000,000  people,  all  free  ; 
Virginia  a  million  and  a  half,  and  500,000  of 
them  are  slaves.  New  England  has  3600  miles 
of  railroad,  which  have  cost  $120,000,000; 
Virginia  1200  miles,  which  have  cost  $23,000,- 
000.  The  value  of  the  land  in  Virginia,  in 
1850,  was  $252,000,000 ;  in  New  England, 
$690,000,000.  The  whole  property  of  Vir¬ 
ginia,  in  land  and  goods,  in  1856,  was 
$330,000,000;  of  New  England,  $1,220,000,- 
000.  In  1858  Boston  only  lacks  $72,000,000 
to  be  worth  as  much  as  all  the  lands  and  goods 
of  the  great  Sate  of  Virginia,  with  1,500,000 
people  and  63,000  square  miles  of  land. 
By  nature  how  poor  New  England  ;  Virginia 
how  rich :  by  art  how  poor  Virginia  ;  how  rich 
New  England!  Whence  the  odds  ?  Here  is 
Freedom  ;  every  avenue  to  wealth,  to  honor, 
office,  fame,  is  open  to  all.  There  is  Slavery  ; 
and  as  men  sow,  thus  shall  they  reap,  —  New 
England,  Wealth  of  her  freedom  ;  Virginia, 
from  her  bondage  Poverty.  The  exports  of 
New  England,  they  are  the  products  of  her 
toilsome  hand  and  thinking  brain  ;  they  are 
books,  manufactured  articles:  New  England’s 
hand  goes  through  every  land.  The  exports 
of  Virginia,  they  are  her  sons  and  daughters, 
bred  as  slaves,  to  be  sold  as  cattle.  Virginia 
has  78,000  children  at  school  and  college; 
New  England  676,000.  From  the  Aroostook 
to  the  Ilousatonic,  from  the  day  of  the  Pil¬ 
grims  until  now,  New  England  has  been  cov- 


14 


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ered  all  over  with  the  footprints  of  human 
freedom.  The  poor  little  school-houses  dot  the 
land,  everywhere,  and  the  meeting  house  lifts 
its  finger  to  heaven  as  the  index  of  God's 
Higher  Law,  his  self-evident  Truths,  the  Un¬ 
alienable  Right  of  man  to  Life,  Liberty,  and 
the  Pursuit  of  Happiness.  While  New  Eng¬ 
land  opens  her  ten  thousand  schools  to  all  chil¬ 
dren  —  Saxon,  German,  Irish.  African  —  in 
Virginia  the  arm  of  the  State  shuts  a  woman 
in  jail  because  she  taught  a  colored  girl  to  read 
the  Hew  Testament.  While  Massachusetts 
turns  with  scorn  a  Judge  of  Probate  out  from 
his  office.,  because  he  kidnapped  a  man,  Vir¬ 
ginia  shuts  a  Northern  Sea  Captain  for  forty 
years  in  her  penitentiary,  because  he  aided 
$4000  worth  of  human  property  to  become  free 
men.  who  believe  sic  semper  tyrannis.  That  is 
the  effect  of  slavery  ! 

Nothing  can  save  Slavery.  It  is  destined  to 
ruin.  Once  I  thought  it  might  end  peacefully ; 
now  I  think  it  must  fall  as  so  many  another 
wickedness,  in  violence  and  blood.  Slavery  is 
in  flagrant  violation  of  the  institutions  of  Amer¬ 
ica  —  Direct  Government,  —  over  all  the  peo¬ 
ple,  by  all  the  people,  for  all  the  people.  It  is 
hostile  to  the  interests  of  industrial  Democracy; 
it  lessens  wealth  —  weakening  the  growth  of 
creative  power,  Toil  and  Thought.  It  lies  in 
the  way  of  all  religion.  There  is  one  great 
maxim  of  morality,  older  than  Jesus  of  Naza¬ 
reth,  common  to  the  Chinese,  Buddistic, 
Classic,  Mohammedan,  and  Christian  religion, 
“Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do 
unto  you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them."  Measure 
Slavery  by  the  Golden  Rule  and  where  is  it  1 
It  conflicts  with  the  self-evident  truths  of  hu¬ 
man  reason  so  clear  to  our  Fathers,  and  first 
promulged  eighty-two  years  ago  this  day.  It 
stands  in  the  way  of  that  Automatic  Instinct 
of  Progress  which  is  eternal  in  the  human 
race  and  irresistible  in  human  history. 

Democracy  is  the  stone  which  the  builders 
rejected,  in  due  time  it  is  hoisted  up  with 
shouting,  and  made  the  head  of  the  corner.  It 
was  not  the  work  of  wise  men,  who  knew  what 
they  did.  “It  is  the  Lord’s  doing,  and  it  is 
marvellous  in  our  eves;”  not  your  forecast, 
but  the  Divine  Providence  that  works  by  us 
and  through  us  without  our  will.  “Whoso 
falleth  on  that  stone  shall  be  broken,  but  on 
whomsoever  it  shall  fall  it  will  grind  him  to 
powder.” 

Slavery  must  go  down.  The  course  of  Trade 


is  against  it ;  the  course  of  Thought ;  the  course 
of  Religion  ;  the  course  of  Politics, — the  course 
of  History.  All  the  Ccesars  could  not  save 
Paganism,  when  the  Sun  of  Christian  right¬ 
eousness  shone  in  the  Roman  sky.  No  Julian, 
the  apostate,  can  turnback  the  eyes  of  free  men 
to  love  that  Vicariousness  of  government, 
which  our  Pilgrim  Fathers  fled  from  with  de¬ 
vout  prayers,  and  which  our  Patriot  Fathers 
declared  against  and  put  down  with  devout 
swords.  Meetings  of  Southern  planters  to  re¬ 
store  the  slave  trade,  assemblies  of  Northern 
capitalists  and  their  flunkeys  to  suppress  agita¬ 
tion  and  enforce  Kidnapping,  conventions  of 
National  Politicians  to  put  down  the  principles 
of  democracy  and  the  Christian  religion  — 
can  these  things  save  Slaverv  from  its  fate  ? 
No  more  than  a  convention  of  grizzly  bears  in 
the  Rocky  Mountains  can  protect  the  savage 
woods  from  the  axe,  or  stay  the  tide  of  civil¬ 
ized  man,  which  will  sweep  across  the  conti¬ 
nent,  and  fill  the  howling  wilderness  with  farms 
and  villages  and  cities  of  Christian  men  in¬ 
stead  of  grizzly  bears.  Let  Presidents  and 
Cabinets  do  their  possible,  mankind  will  tread 
Slavery  underneath  their  feet. 

You  and  I,  American  men  and  women,  wTe 
must  end  Slavery  soon,  or  it  ruins  our  democ¬ 
racy  —  the  sooner  the  better  and  at  the  smaller 
cost.  And  if  we  are  faithful,  as  our  Patriot 
Fathers  and  our  Pilgrim  Fathers,  then  when 
you  and  your  children  shall  assemble  eighteen 
years  hence  to  keep  the  one  hundredth  birth¬ 
day  of  the  land,  there  shall  not  be  a  slave  in 
all  America! 

Then  wdiat  a  prospect,  what  a  history  is 
there  for  the  American  People  with  their  In¬ 
dustrial  Democracy  !  For  all  men  Freedom  in 
the  Market,  freedom  in  the  School,  freedom  in 
the  Church,  freedom  in  the  State !  Remove 
this  monstrous  evil,  what  a  glorious  future 
shall  be  ours !  The  whole  mighty  continent 
will  come  within  the  bounds  of  Liberty,  aad 
the  very  islands  of  the  gulf  rejoice. 

And,  henceforth,  there  shall  be  no  chain, 

Save,  underneath  the  sea, 

The  wires  shall  murmur  through  the  main 
Sweet  songs  of  liberty. 

The  conscious  stars  accord  above, 

The  waters  wild  below, 

And  under,  through  the  cable  wove, 

Her  fiery  errands  go. 

For  He  who  worketli  high  and  wise, 

Nor  pauses  in  his  plan, 

Will  take  the  sun  out  of  the  skies 
Ere  freedom  out  of  man. 


Cl  ROULAE, 

TO  THE  THINKING  PUBLIC  THROUGHOUT  THE  COUNTRY. 


.  ■  -  <  —  »  > - 

REY.  THEODORE  PARKER’S 

SERMONS 

% 

ON  THE 

Present  Revival  of  Religion, 

DELIVERED  AT  MUSIC  HALL,  BOSTON. 

THREE  DISTINCT  DISCOURSES. 


The  First, —  delivered  on  14th  February,  upon  “False  and  True  Theology,” 
to  which  is  added  the  Prayers  which  were  offered  at  Park  Street,  Boston,  for 
Mr.  Parker’s  Conversion. 

The  Second, —  delivered  April  4th,  upon  “A  False  and  True  Bevival  of 
Religion.” 

The  TniRD, —  delivered  April  11th,  upon  “The  Revival  of  Religion  which 

WE  NEED.” 

Full  and  accurate  reports,  revised  by  the  Author. 


ffp*  These  Sermons  have  created  an  immense  sensation  throughout  the  country, 
calling  forth  numerous  replies  from  the  pulpit,  and  have  already  reached  the  30th 
thousand. 

The  public  will  please  bear  in  mind  that  these  Sermons  are  published  separately, 
and  order  accordingly. 

Liberal  Rates  to  the  Trade. 

WM  L.  KENT  &  CO.,  Publishers, 


No.  3  STATE  STREET,  BOSTON 


REV.  THEODORE  PARKER’S  WORKS. 


The  following  Works  of  Rev.  Theodore  Parker  will  be.  sent  to 
any  address  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  the  regular  retail  price, 
which  is  affixed  to  each  Work  on  the  Catalogue,  by  addressing 

WM.  L.  KENT  &  CO., 

Wo.  3  STATE  ST,,  BOSTON. 

*/  Liberal  Rates  to  the  Trade. 


1.  A  DISCOURSE  OF  MATTERS  PERTAINING  TO  RELIGION. 

1  Vol.  12mo .  $1.25 

2.  AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  From  the 

German  of  De  Wette.  2  Vols.  8vo .  3.75 

3.  CRITICAL  AND  MISCELLANEOUS  WRITINGS.  1  Vol.  12mo.  1.25 

4.  TEN  SERMONS  OF  RELIGION.  1  Vol.  12mo .  1.00 

5.  SERMONS  OF  THEISM,  ATHEISM,  AND  THE  POPULAR 

THEOLOGY.  1  Vol.  12mo .  1.25 

6.  OCCASIONAL  AND  ADDITIONAL  SERMONS  AND 


7.  THE  TRIAL  OF  THEODORE  PARKER,’ for  the  Misdemeanor'of 
a  Speech  in  Faneuil  Hall,  against  Kidnapping ;  with  the  Defence. 

1  Vol.  8vo . 1.00 

PAMPHLETS. 

1.  A  SERMON  OF  THE  MEXICAN  WAR.  (1848.) . 20 

2.  MOST  CHRISTIAN  USE  OF  THE  SUNDAY.  (1848.) . 20 

3.  ON  THE  DEATH  OF  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS.  (1848.) ....  .20 

4.  THE  PUBLIC  EDUCATION  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  (1850.) . 20 

5.  THE  CHIEF  SINS  OF  THE  PEOPLE.  (1851.) . 15 

6.  LETTER  TO  THE  EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE  OF  THE  AMER¬ 

ICAN  UNITARIAN  ASSOCIATION,  TOUCHING  THEIR 
NEW  CREED.  (1853.) . 12 

7.  ON  LEAVING  THEIR  OLD  AND  ENTERING  A  NEW  PLACE 

OF  WORSHIP.  2  Sermons.  (1853.) . 20 

8  THE  LAWS  OF  GOD  AND  THE  STATUTES  OF  MEN.  (1854.)  .15 

9.  THE  NEW  CRIME  AGAINST  HUMANITY.  (1854.) . 20 

10.  A  SERMON  OF  OLD  AGE.  (1854.) . 15 

11.  DANGERS  WHICH  THREATEN  THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN. 

(1854.) . 20 

12.  THE  MORAL  DANGERS  INCIDENT  TO  PROSPERITY.  (1855.)  .15 

13.  CONSEQUENCES  OF  AN  IMMORAL  PRINCIPLE.  (1855.). .  .15 

14.  OF  IMMORTAL  LIFE.  4th  Edition.  (1855.) . 10 

15.  THE  FUNCTIONS  OF  A  TEACHER  OF  RELIGION.  (1855.)  .20 

16.  A  NEW  LESSON  FOR  THE  DAY.  (1856.) . 15 

17.  THE  GREAT  BATTLE  BETWEEN  FREEDOM  AND  SLA¬ 

VERY.  (1856.) . 25 

18.  THE  PRESENT  ASPECT  OF  SLAVERY  IN  AMERICA.  (1858.)  .20 

19.  A  SERMON  OF  FALSE  AND  TRUE  THEOLOGY.  (Feb.  1S58.)  .08 

20.  A  FALSE  AND  TRUE  REVIVAL  OF  RELIGION.  (April, 

1858.) . 08 

21.  THE  REVIVAL  OF  RELIGION  WHICH  WE  NEED.  (April, 

1858.) . 08 

22.  THE  RELATION  OF  SLAVERY  TO  A  REPUBLICAN  FORM 

OF  GOVERNMENT.  (1858.) . 08 


